Supplejack

by Les Petersen

  I checked the state of the room. No clues to help them. I left it messy.

  “Forty seconds, Jack.”

  “Thank you, Sansan.”

  Very little time to think. To try to sort out some strategy to handle this conflict. How to utilise the illusions, twist the truth. It’s been done so often that no one understands anything anymore on the Net. The surfers live in a world of complete illusion amongst all the perfect faces and stiff bodies they meet. It’s all information to them, not implications by association. Hypertextual landscapes and attractive faces. They see youth, beauty, open door flaunting., but what they see, however, is not what exists. Ugliness, deformity, rudeness; all these have gone from the screen, but not from our lives, not from the naked landscape. Maybe that’s why most surfers aren’t Shiners: they don’t know how to use flaws, just try to eliminate them. If only they knew the touch of reality draws them in, opens them up and keeps me employed.

  Besides being a brilliant Shiner and knowing how to make the most of the illusions, I have good looks and natural charm as well. (I know I have told you that before. Just remember it, Ok?) Charm and good looks comes from my Korean side.

  “Thirty-three seconds, Jack.”

  “Thank you, Sansan.”

  GaZe had the info of a possible safe-house in half the time I had allocated, so, of course, I didn’t trust it. I programmed the move and had him search for another using a different name, knowing he’d be tagged. He bounced off the firewall, went through Cyberspace like a cat chasing leaves. Bleeder followed him, a nanosecond back, monitoring the closing wash, seeking Fault, trailing smoke.

  And there it was. A tag slapped onto GaZe from the moment he emerged from the Needle; a parallel running nearby, Grey-carded. Maybe it was just a chance meeting between GaZe and a Press-hound who wore the Grey-card’s political amnesty code, maybe not. Better safe than sorry. GaZe sent back a message to Medusa and she primed her defences, contacting Sansan to check on Press activity in our area.

  Without the Grey-card coding, Bleeder would have suspected the Steel Hand or a Luddite sympathiser. After all the Press are connected to just about every dissident group you can think of. He’d have severed the link and left a warrior out for them. A pretty little explosion would have followed. As it was, he gave the all clear to Medusa, settled back and let it follow GaZe, knowing the Press-hound would be lost in a short while. He trailed out as thin a line as he could, matching and double-checking his cling by reading amp-fluxes in his own circuits. He took control of one of Medusa’s torpedoes while he sent the info back to Sansan by G.host. She graphed it and put it away for future references.

  “Twelve seconds, Jack.”

  “Okay, Sansan.”

  What I’ve done may seem a little over-the-top to you, but I like to know who’s on me. At any one time, it could be any number of Dog-boys from the Press. Or, worse yet, it could even be Gilamens and her sidekick Shapocket. Them I did not trust. They the worse kind of Press-hound and have been close to entrapping me so many times that my warriors were primed to attack them on sight. Those two have a knack of knowing, which corporation has hired me, who I’m setting armies against and they damn near break the story before I get surveillance logged and actioned., but this time she wasn’t around that I could tell. Bleeder and GaZe zipped off with the Grey-card trapped between them—more than certain to be a new kid, seeking glory, still clumsy. When the kid finally fell by the wayside the torpedo would home in and give them a shunt that would rock their canoe. It would rake their control board up to max, play the William Tell overture at full volume and spill psychedelic images across their holo. While they were reeling from the concussion, it would drop their name into every mailing list they could find. That would wake them up and give them enough of a headache to make them think twice about following my wash again.

  You gotta love this life, really. This hi-tech society kicked my career along nicely by trying to stamp out all the pornography and terrorist movements on the Net, because when some corporations found out how to plant evidence on rivals Intranets, others began hiring Shiners to retaliate. All that led to Cyberwars. My “bread and butter” was leading in armies to destroy a rival’s war machine. Sometimes by stealth, most often by siege or banzai charge., but being sanctioned by law enforcement means the other freelancers watch me like a hawk. They have a network of spies feeding info to the Press. Do something wrong or against the code of the warrior and you’re useless meat. You can’t plead ignorance: it wouldn’t be a defence. Flintlock trained me to shine a little light on the activities of the underworld and I learnt everything they taught me., but they’d hunt me down as well if I got out of hand. Still, I sometimes take other clients who have a personal gripe against the Big Boys, but I keep it as legal as I can. I keep clear of other Shiners as well except in safe houses where we have a code of conduct that prevents wetware wars.

  “Ten seconds, Jack.”

  “Sansan, you’re nagging.”

  She kept quiet. I flexed my wrists, clicked the knuckles of my right hand and bounced up and down to shake out the tightness in my thighs. I tried to think what I had done wrong. No one would understand that I didn’t have a clue what was going on. Or believe I was innocent. You can’t question a squad. They don’t listen to the Perps.

  The trick is to be faster on the trigger than the Grey-cards who have Consults, Garudas and Listers—all inadequate. After all, I can’t go to anyone for help. Other Cloud users aren’t any more understanding than the Grey-cards or the Squads, and the Press think I’m a renegade since I broke from Flintlock. They think I’m running illicit programs and information for a profit and they think I’ll use anyone with a node if it will hide me while I’m running a cache. It’s almost true. I do run programmes every now and then, but I need to, to make the hit look legit. It gets me into the underworld a little quicker than if I stood up and asked nicely. Lot of good that would do me. I’d have an extra eyeball if I tried that or a goon squad on my doorstep. One false step with and they trash you from across the other side of the world. In slang parlance, it’s called sending in a Stiff. Sound familiar?

  And you shouldn’t forget that there are morals in all of this as well. I do have a heart, small though it may be and over-run with the need to be cautious, but I do have a heart. I might have my hands dirty some of the time and I might run pornosims for the mob every so often, but I don’t get involved in political extortion. I wish I could say the same about the Big Boys’ Squads.

  They arrived two seconds late: cropped hair and dark suits and the kind of eyes that tear apart a room even before they’ve entered. The biggest took the front door by physical assault, pushed me back into the room. It was once a man and even though it was something I had expected, she/he (hell, I’ll never get used to it) still knew how to exploit my insecurity at her change of gender. I stumbled away from her, back into the room, slipping a little on the plaster that still layered the floor. She gave a nasty smirk, stepped into the room a little further, produced a badge that flashed gold and pocketed it before I could read it.

  “Jack Dayzen?” She might as well have spat on me for the venom it contained. I nodded and leaned crookedly against the couch as the other three came into the room, all Girls as well.

  “You sure?” she said.

  I knew not to deny it. If I wasn’t me, then I shouldn’t have been in the apartment. Trouble coming or going. So, I nodded. “Yep. I’m he.”

  She glared at me. “Good,” she said. “We’d hate to get the wrong Jack Dayzen.” Their badges flipping open like something the Star-trek crew might use. “Had a report of a disturbance. Would you mind stepping outside while we run Scan.”

  It wasn’t a question. I smiled as sweetly as I could. “Mind if I stay? I’ve never seen you people in action before.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Yes, we mind. Do you want an escort or a stretcher?”

  I didn’t argue, just moved toward the door, taking a wide berth around her, limping. I could se
e another of them on the stairs, her pistol out and ready, waiting for me to make a run for it. The big Snip in the room snorted and waved the others into action, began with the lounge chair, ripping it open with a knife while another of her thugs broke the lampshade in the bedroom and then proceeded to having fun with the crockery in the kitchen.

  These were local militia, an arm of the police now run by the Big Boys. They were a bit hasty—must have had a full workload and were a bit blazed. When they didn’t look at the set-up on the desk I knew they weren’t here for any other reason than to rid the world of one Jack Dayzen. They were just preparing things, destroying the room to make it look like a Luddite raid and it wouldn’t be long before blood was spilt—all of it mine.

  Clever they may be, but there are times, especially when your life is in danger, when you can hide in a crowded room. You can become invisible at will. You must stand just right, say the right things. I stood crookedly in the doorway. “Would you like a cup, sir?”

  The big Snip looked up from her work. “What?”

  “I could make coffee for you gentlemen,” I said, rocking slightly.

  She stood up. The other three came to stand beside her. One produced a pistol. The big Snip glanced at the broken crockery on the kitchen floor, then stabbed a look back at me.

  I turned around and faced out the door, bowed with my back to them and spoke to the one on the stairs. “Come in please, officers.” I turned and faced them, limped back into the room. “Mind if I stay? I’ve never seen you people in action before.”

  The Snips don’t like it when you get their gender wrong. The big woman swore and stabbed the head of the couch. She looked as if she’d tear me apart, but then her eyes swivelled around the room. She glared at me, then slapped her nearest companion. “That’s a bloody Tinman. Dayzen’s getting away in the car.” She crashed into me, shoved me out of the way and charged out the door with her sisters following her turgid wake.

  I had maybe ten minutes; time to get Sansan and Bleeder clipped above my navel and GaZe square on my shoulder. I grabbed the bag I had packed, flicked the jacket on to cover the PAN and followed them down the stairs, into the well of their perfumes, fitting Medusa to my crown, holos running.

  The super was still picking himself off the floor, his jaw mount crackling static. I went past him without stopping.

  They were gone. Outside the air was filled with the stench of burnt rubber and nitro, traffic lights crashing colours. I headed for my Storage in the back alley where I had put the old Harley. Kicked into life, it roared me through the tube in three minutes and in another two had me at Central. I stashed the Hog in a motor-locker and within three minutes was hidden amongst the passengers on the Tilt, on our way to Adelaide. Sansan accessed the Cloud by mobile and Bleeder began clicking through the train control system to make the ride as swift as possible. GaZe re-organised ticketing so that the conductor thought every ticket he scanned was double-booked or out of date and even though the Rail warriors caused a few problems, Medusa had them stone soon enough.

  No matter how easily I seemed to have evaded the squad, I still wasn’t going to relax. The Snips aren’t just men and women who have changed sex or had their sex organs removed, they’ve also had the parts of their brains that deal with rage suppression altered. You don’t turn your back on a Snip. Not unless you want to be concrete reinforcement on a construction site somewhere.

  I checked on Harry. He was leaving big “follow me” signs through Parramatta with several traffic accidents—none of them serious, all of them slowing down the Girls. I would have loved to have been there when they caught him up and found out he was the cyborg. Poor Harry. Poor Girls.

  Chapter 2

  The Tilt had Eyes, amplified through hard-connection in the cubicle. I jacked in for the stim, found myself flying down the track a meter above gravel, alone, in a world of rushing buildings and crossings that pinged into the distance behind me. The throb of steel joints rocked me; the wind buffeted me when I took the corners, leaning to stabilise and the crowing trumpet of my passage filled my ears. Stations flared past, rushing faces, steel, brick, signage, gone. The outer suburbs accelerated at me, swung left and right, pale avenues of blurred buildings, smoke saturated, evening faces, smudged glass, rapidly, rickety, orderly. On the straight between Liverpool and Goulburn I dampened my senses, let GaZe monitor the distance and closed my eyes, felt the seat beneath me. I dozed for a while, opened my eyes as we went through Yass, a blur of steel, red lights crazing and wind howling around me. In open country again, GaZe slowed the frames and warmed the air and I fell asleep floating above rocketing earth.

  Sansan woke me two hours later, between Wagga Wagga and Adelaide and I sat there eating the meal she had arranged while GaZe scanned the Cloud looking at Harry’s Last Stand. The article called it a Luddite raid, of course and named the casualties from the explosion, gave intimate details of relatives, where they could be contacted and accounts numbers for donations. Virtual Sims to follow, with the warning that if I was going to be disturbed by them not to participate.

  I get a bit sick of that line, let me tell you. The Presenter says “the following may upset some viewers” as if it is a dare; as if they’re saying “you aren’t one of those people, are you?” They see shocking Sims as important footage, but it’s really Infotainment. Their Stringers know how to milk the emotion for the audience, going for complete coverage, even down to the smell of blood and heat from the fires. I wasn’t going to watch. As I said before, I’ve got a heart; I’ve got morals, twisted though they may be. Maybe that’s why I gave up the job with Bell Corp and took up freelance Shining for the money.

  I suppose it something you would want to know and I’m not afraid to tell you. It will put this all into some sort of order for you, show you where I’m coming from. Hell, it’s more information to fill the pool. That’ll keep some of you happy.

  A simple beginning. I was an engineer’s assistant for Flintlock Bureau’s training institute: electronics and Cybernetics—the usual stuff. I’d dabbled with Drone construction and robotics for a while, thought that was where my future lay, but began studying military programming on quiet evenings. When I topped the class, my supervisors told me I was wasted where I was and found a position for me at Bell. Said it would suit me and put me in touch with the recruitment office. The job called for a degree in Microelectronics and paid more. I was young and idealistic, had all the qualifications and the money they offered was worth the enslavement. Two weeks later I had passed through security checks, IQ checks, physical checks, drug checks, morality checks, data checks, aura leakage checks and a thousand other checks. I had no idea what they were for. I came out of post-op with an implant and a silicon circuit plate built into my shoulder blades and was working for maintenance at Bell Corp. It was that sudden. Two weeks for a new life.

  Bell Corp had a big complex north of Ryde just outside Sydney, Australia, where they made the specialised circuit boards and encryption chips for military Drones and other contracts. We were one factory in a great chain, but we were made to feel as if our link was the centre of it all, making the encryption devices that kept our world safe from everything. Even all the pornography and terrorism on the Net. I was rolling in money, had everything a man could desire and every shift I walked through those big brass doors, past the Tinmen in their security towers, past the guards in their wonderful red uniforms with all the shiny buttons and out onto the factory floor. I’d whistle and nod to the people around me, almost dance up the stair to my office on the third floor, slip into my coveralls and stand in front of my desk watching the robot assembly line swirling and sparking beneath me. The air was free of every known contaminant – almost pure. You could breathe it in and feel the joy of life in your blood. The coffee would be steaming in my hand, the robots would be knitting away with their yellow and black arms flashing over the blue boards like a sewing circle and the clock would be ticking around to the time when I could go home to an apartment with eve
ry convenience known to humans. Life was great.

  I was only there for five months before it all began to stale. Little things made it worthwhile, like the gymnasium and entertainment areas, the restaurants and world trips, but more and more I felt things slipping away from me. I’d just met Shahn then – before she had the Cut and called herself Handel.

  Christ, that still makes me weep.

  Back then she was all “you want it, I got it” and her hands had ways with my body that only dreams can better. I still had more money than I knew what to do with, even after the Government implemented a testosterone tax. I’d even joined a group that re-enacted the last days of Silicon Valley, including the day the Luddites drove a thermo-nuclear device into the centre of the place and blew it from the face of the world some fifty years ago. Those were magnificent times: power-broking and R and D; the Cloud opening up and the surge of information. It made my head spin, that re-enactment stuff. Infomania.

  But little by little the façade began to slip. Shahn was very attentive—though she had decided that children could wait a few years because she wanted to investigate her masculine side a little more. Then came the crunch. My father died in a stupid accident after his car stalled on a railroad crossing. He had refused to drive the new car I had bought him, preferring to use the ancient Porsche convertible that had been made in the 1990’s. A good car, but not as reliable as the one I bought him. The new car would have ejected him to safety.

  But it wasn’t just in my personal life that things were changing. I began to think the world was a little crazy beyond the walls of my life as well, that the European War would never end, that Africa was falling apart even after overcoming all the problems of unification, that Asia was still cranking out more useless goodies even after the Sweatshop Revolution, the collapse of the rare minerals market, the second Korean nuclear accident and the Malaysian War. The Luddites had become a unified force and had almost destroyed America, both North and South. Half of it was still a nuclear glow that interfered with the satellite links, the other half was reduced to a feudal state. You required visas from fourteen different Lords just to get into New York—that’s how bad it is., but it’s still powerful and rebuilding faster than you can spit. Give it a year.